DAVID GIROIRE COMMUNICATION

STUDIO ASAÏ

ANTOINE SIMONIN FOUNDED STUDIO ASAÏ IN 2014, AFTER HAVING SPENT HIS EARLY PROFESSIONAL CAREER WITH ANDRÉE PUTMAN AND THEN JEAN-FRANÇOIS BODIN. THIS LONG EXPERIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE MEANS THAT TODAY HIS ABLE TO ASSUME BOTH RESIDENTIAL AND HOTEL PROJECTS WITH THE SAME APPETITE FOR CHALLENGE.

Each new project demands its own aesthetic quality, faithful to those who give it life. Working as if a portraitist, Antoine Simonin prefers to write their music using their own notes, rather than imposing a one-way aesthetic. An approach that is more humanist and instinctive, yet still leaves a coherent signature, a watermark where the sophistication of his suggestions mixes with a proclivity for crude materials. From Arts & Crafts to wabi-sabi, from primitive art to Adolf Loos. The references stored in his imagination share a certain radicalism that the architect likes to translate by enhancing the veins in the marble, the patina of carefully selected wood or the perfect lines of a chair. He gives the interior design all that is essential, with perfect respect for its original context.

In a recently delivered Parisian apartment on Avenue Henri-Martin, he enhances the classic Haussmann codes, whilst the raw nature of earth and concrete are brought to the fore in a South African lodge planned for 2020. On the other hand, for a windmill on the Portuguese hills of Sintra, Antoine Simonin chose to set out his plan as a fan, whereas a chalet currently under construction in the Swiss canton of Valais inspires a more pared-down approach. So many different decorative styles where the space takes centre stage both sides of the curtain, between the public and private rooms, like an architectural promenade steeped in contrast.